NetApp Optimizes VMware Environments with New Capabilities

Rhea-AI Summary

NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) has announced new capabilities to support VMware Cloud Foundation deployments, enabling customers to optimize their private and hybrid cloud environments. The collaboration between NetApp and Broadcom (which recently acquired VMware) aims to enhance the efficiency of VMware workloads at scale. Key offerings include:

1. Expanded support for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) using NetApp ONTAP software
2. New capabilities for Azure VMware Solution (AVS) with Spot Eco by NetApp
3. Enhanced VM optimization features for NetApp Cloud Insights
4. A free 30-day trial of Cloud Insights to help customers migrate to new VMware software subscriptions

These enhancements follow recent updates to NetApp BlueXP disaster recovery service for VMware workloads across hybrid cloud environments.

Positive

• Expanded support for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) using NetApp ONTAP software
• New capabilities for Azure VMware Solution (AVS) with Spot Eco by NetApp to reduce compute costs
• Enhanced VM optimization features for NetApp Cloud Insights
• Free 30-day trial of Cloud Insights offered to customers
• Recent enhancements to NetApp BlueXP disaster recovery service for VMware workloads

Negative

• None.

Insights

Tech Expert

NetApp's expanded support for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) represents a significant enhancement for hybrid cloud environments. By enabling the use of ONTAP software for all storage requirements, including standard and consolidated architectures, NetApp is streamlining operations and reducing complexity for VCF deployments. This could lead to improved efficiency and cost savings for enterprises managing large-scale virtualized infrastructures.

The introduction of SnapMirror active sync is particularly noteworthy. This feature provides symmetric active-active data replication, which can significantly enhance data availability and disaster recovery capabilities. By offloading data protection from virtualized compute, it has the potential to boost overall system performance and resilience, addressing critical concerns for businesses relying heavily on VMware workloads.

Cloud Infrastructure Analyst

The new capabilities for Azure VMware Solution (AVS) demonstrate NetApp's commitment to multi-cloud strategies. By leveraging Spot Eco with AVS reserved instances, customers can potentially optimize their cloud spending. This, combined with the use of Azure NetApp Files for data storage, could lead to significant reductions in compute costs. For organizations looking to extend or migrate their vSphere workloads to the cloud, these enhancements offer a compelling value proposition, potentially accelerating cloud adoption while maintaining cost-effectiveness.

The introduction of Cloud Insights VM Optimization is another game-changer. By providing tools to increase VM density and optimize storage price-to-performance ratios, NetApp is addressing key pain points in virtual environment management. This comprehensive solution could help customers maximize resource utilization and reduce operational costs, which is important in today's competitive business landscape.

Financial Analyst

From a financial perspective, NetApp's strategic moves in the VMware ecosystem are likely to strengthen its market position and potentially drive revenue growth. The company's focus on optimizing costs and improving operational efficiency for VMware customers aligns well with current market demands for cost-effective, high-performance IT solutions.

The expanded partnership with Broadcom (following its VMware acquisition) and the collaboration with Microsoft Azure position NetApp favorably in the evolving cloud and virtualization landscape. This could lead to increased adoption of NetApp's solutions among VMware users, potentially translating to higher sales and market share. Moreover, the free 30-day trial of Cloud Insights could serve as an effective customer acquisition strategy, potentially converting into long-term subscriptions and recurring revenue streams.

NetApp and Broadcom maximize the value of customers’ private and hybrid cloud environments

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the original intelligent data infrastructure company, today announced new capabilities that support VMware Cloud Foundation deployments. Mutual customers will be able to leverage NetApp solutions to right-size their IT environments to run VMware workloads at scale efficiently.

For more than a decade, NetApp and VMware, recently acquired by Broadcom Inc., have collaborated to ensure the success of their joint customers and help them unlock the full value of their VMware investments. During that time, NetApp has been a key engineering design partner with VMware and is continuing to drive innovation in highly available, scalable and performant storage as a design partner for its Next-Generation vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols). Now, NetApp is announcing new capabilities that will enable joint customers to run their VMware deployments more efficiently.

“NetApp and Broadcom are working together to take the uncertainty out of hybrid cloud environments,” said Jonsi Stefansson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at NetApp. “More than 20,000 customers rely on NetApp to support their VMware workloads. NetApp's continued close collaboration with Broadcom following the acquisition of VMware ensures our solutions seamlessly interoperate so our mutual customers can leverage a single intelligent data infrastructure to operate their VMware workloads more efficiently.”

NetApp is helping optimize costs, simplify operations, and increase flexibility for customers running VMware environments by offering:

• Expanded Support for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF): NetApp and Broadcom customers will now be able to simplify their VCF hybrid cloud environments by using NetApp ONTAP^® software for all storage requirements, including standard and consolidated architectures. The latest release of ONTAP Tools for VMware (OTV) will support SnapMirror® active sync to provide symmetric active-active data replication capabilities for NetApp storage systems running VMware workloads. SnapMirror active sync allows customers to operate more efficiently by offloading data protection from their virtualized compute and improving data availability.
• New Capabilities for Azure VMware Solution (AVS): To support customers that are extending or migrating their vSphere workloads to the cloud, customers can now leverage Spot Eco by NetApp with AVS reserved instances to get the most value out of their deployments. Using Spot Eco to manage AVS reserved instances while also using Azure NetApp Files to offload data storage can reduce compute costs significantly.
• Enhanced VM Optimization Features for NetApp Cloud Insights: NetApp is introducing Cloud Insights VM Optimization, expanding its comprehensive solution for optimizing virtual environments, including VMware. Cloud Insights VM Optimization will give customers tools to reduce costs by increasing VM density, run storage at the best price-to-performance ratio for their environment, and monitor their entire environment to ensure availability, performance, and adherence to configuration best practices across the entire stack. To help customers optimize the compute, memory and storage resources of their VMware environments, NetApp is also offering customers a free 30-day trial of Cloud Insights to most cost-effectively migrate to the new VMware software subscriptions.

These offerings follow last month’s release of enhancements to NetApp BlueXP™ disaster recovery service, which provides guided workflows to design and execute automated disaster recovery plans for VMware workloads across hybrid cloud environments with newly added support for VMFS datastores.

“As organizations modernize infrastructure with VMware Cloud Foundation, they want to know that the services upon which they rely from industry-leaders such as NetApp will continue to work seamlessly and deliver the value they have come to expect,” said Paul Turner, Vice President of Products, VCF Division at Broadcom. “Having NetApp as a close collaborator helps our mutual customers deploy innovative data and storage services on top of their private cloud platform, and ensure they are getting the most value out of their VMware environments.”

“We have made Microsoft Azure the cloud of choice for VMware environments and offer fast and cost-effective solutions enabling many customers to move their VMware workloads to the cloud,” said Brett Tanzer, Vice President of Product Management at Microsoft. “As VMware customers navigate changes to operating virtualized environments, we have given our customers a way to lock in secure and predictable pricing over multiple years. NetApp's data management and cloud observability capabilities help our customers ensure those deployments are delivering the return on investment they need.”

“In an ever more complicated world of cloud, data, and infrastructure operations, IT teams are increasingly looking for holistic platforms over point solutions,” said Scott Sinclair, Practice Director, Enterprise Strategy Group. “These joint updates from NetApp and Broadcom enable customers to use NetApp’s intelligent data infrastructure to consolidate multiple data operations onto a single platform with industry-leading data management and CloudOps capabilities. That will help customers drive greater operational and infrastructure efficiencies that reduce the total cost of ownership for their VMware investments.”

Additional Resources

• Optimize your VMware Environment with New Capabilities
• NetApp and VMware

About NetApp

NetApp is the original intelligent data infrastructure company, combining unified data storage, integrated data services, and CloudOps solutions to turn a world of disruption into opportunity for every customer. NetApp creates silo-free infrastructure, harnessing observability and AI to enable the industry’s best data management. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in the world’s biggest clouds, our data storage delivers seamless flexibility. In addition, our data services create a data advantage through superior cyber resilience, governance, and application agility. Our CloudOps solutions provide continuous optimization of performance and efficiency through observability and AI. No matter the data type, workload, or environment, with NetApp you can transform your data infrastructure to realize your business possibilities. Learn more at www.netapp.com or follow us on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240828604243/en/

Media Contact:

Kenya Hayes

NetApp

kenya.hayes@netapp.com

Investor Contact:

Kris Newton

NetApp

kris.newton@netapp.com

Source: NetApp

FAQ

What new capabilities has NetApp (NTAP) announced for VMware environments?

NetApp has announced expanded support for VMware Cloud Foundation using ONTAP software, new capabilities for Azure VMware Solution with Spot Eco, enhanced VM optimization features for Cloud Insights, and a free 30-day trial of Cloud Insights to help customers migrate to new VMware software subscriptions.

How can NetApp's (NTAP) new offerings reduce costs for VMware customers?

NetApp's offerings can reduce costs by increasing VM density, optimizing storage price-to-performance ratios, and providing tools to monitor and ensure best practices across the entire stack. Additionally, using Spot Eco with Azure VMware Solution reserved instances can significantly reduce compute costs.

What is the significance of NetApp's (NTAP) collaboration with Broadcom for VMware customers?

The collaboration ensures that NetApp solutions seamlessly interoperate with VMware products, allowing mutual customers to leverage a single intelligent data infrastructure to operate their VMware workloads more efficiently in private and hybrid cloud environments.

How does NetApp (NTAP) support disaster recovery for VMware workloads?

NetApp recently enhanced its BlueXP disaster recovery service, which provides guided workflows to design and execute automated disaster recovery plans for VMware workloads across hybrid cloud environments, with newly added support for VMFS datastores.